More than 200 people showed up Thursday night on the North Side to learn about and share their views on what should be done about eight miles of congestion-plagued U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Borgfeld Drive.

Though the meeting overlapped with the start of the Spurs' battle with Miami for the NBA championship, most stayed through tipoff and into the first quarter, with no one even mentioning the score.

Of the 31 people who spoke, those opposed to funding any expansion of the highway with tolls received the most enthusiastic applause.

“This will cost up to 50 cents a mile or $7 a day,” said Terri Hall, who became one of the loudest opponents of toll roads in 2005 after moving to Comal County and learning the expansion of U.S. 281 could include tolls.

It explores various options to address congestion by adding expressway-style lanes and how to pay for an expansion.

The three construction options laid out in the draft EIS are: Do nothing, build an expressway at ground level with four lanes in each direction, or an elevated expressway with three lanes in each direction.

The options to pay for it include tolls on all vehicles, some free lanes for certain vehicles, like carpoolers and buses, or a combination of the two.

The no-build option would not help alleviate the delays in traffic, which can crawl at 15 mph at peak times, and are projected to get worse.

An elevated highway could be built with minimal disruption, but would cost $646 million to $655 million. The surface option would cost less, but the construction would make traffic even worse in the short term, according to the draft EIS.

Daryl Johnson, who lives off U.S. 281 near Stone Oak Parkway and said he has to time when he leaves his house to avoid the congestion, favors the elevated highway option because there's a smaller risk of harming endangered species that may live in the limestone caves beneath and alongside the highway.

“If they expect San Antonio to grow, you better build roads and if you wait too long you will never catch up,” he said.

But many of his neighbors are fearful an elevated road would be loud and ugly.

Despite the traffic, she said she has never seen such a hot housing market in the 15 years she has lived along U.S. 281 and worries that an elevated highway that would average 25 feet above ground and go as high as 60 feet in some places would stop that.

Others are concerned the expansion of the highway would just accelerate development.

The draft EIS estimates the construction of the express lanes would cause 18,000 to 19,000 more acres to be developed in the area, which includes part of Bexar, Comal, Blanco and Kendall counties. Most of that would occur over the recharge and contributing zones of the Edwards Aquifer, the main source of San Antonio's drinking water supply.

“We don't think you should pave over the recharge zone,” Enrique Valdivia, president of Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, said before the meeting.

Valdivia said if TxDOT does not take a closer look at the impact of expanding U.S. 281, his group would likely challenge the project again in court.

But if the expansion does not proceed, air quality is expected to get worse because of the idling traffic and the safety of those on the roads will be diminished as congestion worsens, said Duane Wilson, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

“We are for doing something,” he said. “I'm willing to pay the toll.”

By federal law, all comments sent to TxDOT by July 1 on the draft study will be considered before the “preferred alternative' is selected late this fall, said Renee Green, director of Public Works for Bexar County. That decision will be further analyzed in the final environmental impact statement, which will be submitted for federal review this spring.

If approved for expansion, Green said work on the roadway could begin by fall 2014.